Hi thereYou may find the following extract helpful. I copied and pasted it from one of the Forums here on IG a few months ago:

“...At the end of the war British Authorities sent all documents concerning Italian Pows to the International Red Cross in Geneva. All records sent to Italy were dispersed throughtout the various military districts. The IRC is then the only organisation able to give details on where a POW was kept. To do so you need to know at least the name of the person as there were some hundred thousand Italian Pows in British hands...”

I did email the Red Cross at the time (GVA_Tracing_Archives <tracing.archives@icrc.org) and they replied promptly asking me to fill in the following on-line form at http://www.icrc.org/eng/contact-archives. At that time they said it would take on average 12 months to complete the research. Things may have changed since?

If you have any more details about Franco Corbo like his date and place of birth then I am sure one of these gifted people here may provide you with the appropriate letter to write, to the relevant authority and town in Italy.

Terry123 wrote:Thanks Angela I have filled in the online form and submited it thanks for your help I will keep my fingers crossed

You’re most welcome.

I’ve looked up the Italian white pages – you may have already done this – there are six Franco Corbo’s listed there. One just may be related to your Franco Corbo. You may like to either phone them or write them a letter to enquire. The appropriate letter to write, which is in Italian, is often posted here on IG. I’ll look for it later and post it here (or someone else who knows exactly the letter I mean might do this for me - please).

I did a search yesterday and this sounds like your Franco Corbo – you may have even written it yourself? If you didn’t then there is someone else looking for info on Franco and by now may have more info. It was written in some sort of guest book in Abruzzo? in 2005. (Not sure about that part). If it wasn’t you who wrote it let me know and I’ll navigate myself back to the link and send it for you to follow up on. I copied and pasted it, here’s what it said:

“I am researching about Italian prisoners of war in England in 1945 in the Staffordshire area particulaly the Walsall area Franco Corbo was the name of one of them is there any one out there with any information.”

So Walsall in Staffordshire is an area where you could be making enquiries. Most of these towns seem to have historic societies which just may have a section on WW2 POWs. Abruzzo might be the place where he originated???

I guess you probably know that a lot of the Italian POWs were employed locally often on farms so that would be another avenue to look into if you haven't already done so.